Fixed Class 4 Cannon Engineering

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Thoughts? I haven't used a Cannon since well before the engineering changes, and I was thinking the Cannon would be a good option for a Kinetic-based Mamba, given that Cannons have no Dmaage Falloff.


I heard High Yield shell was nerfed, so it's no longer possible to basically nuke every internal module in one solid hit.

Force shell is fun, but not really practical.

That leaves Dispersal Field and Auto Loader as the practical PVP and PVE options? or am I just out of the loop?

To Expand, what I was currently looking at doing with my Mamba Hardpoints was

2x Enforcer cannon (Incendiary) Overcharged or High Capacity Magazine to deal with shields. I had this thought last time I was using my mamba practicing fixed, noting how easy it is to score shield-hits even on small targets with the Enforcer. (the Overcharged mod should put their DPS somewhere in the 20/s range, with little damage falloff, making them competitive with even Class 3 pulse lasers for shield stripping)

2x corrosive Short Range blaster or Overcharged C3 Multi Cannons (Gimpballed) to povide some sustained fire against more nimble targets at closer range. The Mamba's poor class 3 hardpoint placement, the Reliance Mamba has on speed (4 pips to engines full time) and the spin-up time of Class 3 Multicannon pretty much precludes fixed options

1x Fixed C4 Cannon for punching through hardened targets. Thinking Overcharged? With Auto loader for PVE. I might engineer a second PVP cannon too and store it, Overcharged and Dispersal field probably? I don't know if my intuition is correct here or not.

[<Caeris↝]

High yield was nerfed, yes.... but, it´s not more 50% dmg. reduce. Now it´s 35% and that makes a difference.
Tested it against different targets (from small to big) and cz.
The only problem what you have is to destroy the enemies shields. Once destroyed it can surely be one shot, if you hit with 2 huge cannons at the same time the pp or also ~2-4 shots to break the drives.
Sure, it´s still not as good as in past, but you can give it a chance.

The problem with cannons or also pas, good players can avoid them. The shot speed is around 1000 and if your target is fast or far away, you´ll miss all the time.
It depends on what ship you are. For a Cutter i would recommend long range with dispersal field.
For ex. your Mamba 1 huge overcharged with also dispersal field.

I didn´t tested that yet in a Mamba, but i think it might be working also.
Overcharged high yield on huge and 2 large hardpoints.
The only problem, how i said, is the shields.

Only use fixed cannons. Gimballed are after my opinion much to weak and don´t think about turrets, just forget it.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Yeah, jitter and hilariously bad shot speed means Gimballed cannons are crap.

Class 4 Huge Fixed cannon has 1200m/s shot speed, which is about 50% faster than a Plasma Accelerator, and 25% slower than a typical multicannon projectile. I was thinking, because Mamba has a sighting advantage over FDL (the Huge Hardpoint is mounted on the top of the ship) Cannon might have been an optimal choice.

I tried PA, and in my opinion, PA just isn't good on Mamba, it doesn't have the turning rate required to compensate for a slow moving weapon like PA, and it also has some energy management issues/heat when dealing with such a weapon, alas, falling back on the cannon.

I'll probably put an Effecient PA on my Cutter again though. Maybe even plasma slug since the Cutter would never run out of fuel in combat unless you were extremely dumb, which compensates for the PA's biggest failure in PVE.


Now the real debate begins, do I head 5000LY back to the bubble in order to perform these upgrades, and get back for Distant worlds takeoff, or maybe I should just use a suicidewinder teleport.

[<Caeris↝]

Fixed huge cannon is only 900m/s and pa 875m/s.
They do their job good if your target is max. 1000m away.
I tried a pa mix on my Mamba.
Efficient on 1 huge and 2 large hardpoints and 2 long range feedback cascade rails and got no problems with the power distributor which is weapon focused engineered. I think i used 2 pips or maybe 3 pips in wep. Heat wasn´t really a problem if i didn´t overdone it.

It´s also possible to one shot your enemy, if he hasn´t got any shields left while you hit with all 3 pas the pp.
Pa is in my eyes a very strong weapon, doesn´t matter in PvE or PvP. The mods are very nice and shields drops faster, because they use absolute dmg. . The only way to hold out against pa is to have much mj shields. Resistances don´t work against them, only how much mj you´ve got.
Even modules can be hard damaged or destroyed with few direct shots.
The only problems, how i said before, is the shot speed and to hit the enemy.


It depends on you what you want.
Spend more time to travel back and get more money from your discoveries. Also maybe your name on unscanned systems or throw all out of the window and start a new task.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

PA doesn't drop shields faster in PVE than Lasers because (most) NPC's are running bog standard shields still with a Thermal weakness.

I put double Large Rapid Fire APAs on my Chieftain once, and it was one of the funniest builds ever, until I overheated and explodered.

[<Caeris↝]

Originally posted by Hobo Misanthropus:

PA doesn't drop shields faster in PVE than Lasers because (most) NPC's are running bog standard shields still with a Thermal weakness.

I put double Large Rapid Fire APAs on my Chieftain once, and it was one of the funniest builds ever, until I overheated and explodered.

Normal npcs, yes, but you can one shot their shields on weaker ones.
Not in cz middle/high. Where you can find engineered npcs.
It took for me longer by an engineered npc, to take down his shields with huge beams than with PAs.

Yea, APAs are very funny and better than normal ones if you´re a good sniper.


https://picload.org/view/dciiwlaw/pavsapa.jpg.html

[Hobo Misanthropus]

I was testing my mamba cannon build, do some Elite NPC Bounty Hunters (not Pirates) have engineering now too? This vulture was brutal, though I got a lucky shot on its engines and sent it spiraling out of control for an easy kill about halfway through the fight.

Typically when I see Engineered vultures, they have Phasing Pulse, but this one didn't, but it definitely behaved a lot differently than typical Elite NPCs.

[<Caeris↝]

This happens to me much if i´m in a cz and the mission appears to kill those ships (don´t know atm. how they was named).
Everytime.. 4 Vultures and 3 of them with phasing sequence. They remind me of the Advanced Tactical Response.
I know why my ships got repair limpets on board.